Deborah Pryor's Briar Patch is not based on the now un-p.c. Uncle Remus tales but it is brimming with a group of quirky, scheming characters.

Deborah Pryor's Briar Patch is not based on the now un-p.c. Uncle Remus tales but it is brimming with a group of quirky, scheming characters. It's an offbeat story about a woman in a backwater Virginia town who attempts to flee her marriage to an abusive pot farmer and run off to Richmond with a rich and handsome peanut farmer.

The work has taken a sort of reverse path to the stage. Pryor, who is currently a fellow at the American Film Institute, first wrote Briar Patch as a screenplay (which won a prestigious Nichols Foundation Award) and only later re-wrote it for the stage.

Prior to its current production at the Ventura Court Theatre, Briar Patch was produced at Arena Stage in Washington.